Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

MR. FENNO,

Finding my name has been made use of in
your papers of late, and wrong impressions
may have been made on the minds of some,
with respect to Mr. Philips' telling me of his
bringing a sick man to his house, lays me under
the necessity of removing those impressions,
by stating the cause that gave rise to them. On the afternoon of that day previous
to Mr. Philips taking sick, I called on him
for some money he owed me; after saying he
could not give it at that time, he told me
(what he had formerly done) of a certain merchant
that owed him a considerable sum; but that he was kept out of it for the want
of a witness, an old lodger of his: that that
witness had of late arrived at the Fort, but
being sick, he had gone down and brought
him up; this being the first mention made of
fever or sickness between us, I observed that
I had heard the fever was below, he replied,
that he did not think it was the fever that
the young man had. Indeed, I did not wait
to discuss this matter with him, I left the
street as soon as I could: next morning I
heard that Mr. Philips was very bad of the
Yellow Fever. With respect to my conversation
with Mr. J. Milnor at the Eagle, I
only mentioned the circumstance of Mr. Philips'
telling me of the man's being brought up,
not those that led to it: he replied, that (as
he had heard) he believed it could be proved
that Mr. Philips had brought up a sick man
from the Deborah on the ninth night of her
quarantine in a boat of a Mr. Dawson.

Mr. Milnor did not say, as it would appear
in the way expressed in your paper, that Mr.
Philips told him of his bringing up a man to
his house. I have not spoke to Mr. Milnor
since I saw him at the Eagle.

JOHN PURDON.

January 2, 1799.